This post was first published here on March 20, 2009 If you use several descriptive words in a row, where do you put commas? Or do you? Here are a couple of my theories on that subject. First, if you can put the word and between the words, you should use a comma between them . For example, Mary is an impish-looking, animated, slim white girl. This sentence easily could read this way: Mary is an impish-looking and animated and slim white girl. But you wouldn’t say she was a slim and white girl. So, according to that example, you put a comma where you use each and . Here’s my second theory. If you can rearrange the descriptive words, you should use a comma before each of the words that you can move . Using the same example, you could write that Mary is a slim, animated, impish-looking white girl. However, it wouldn’t work to say Mary is a white, slim, animated, impish-looking girl. The word white needs to stay next to girl because it is an integral part of her basic descri...

Merciful heavens, it snowed again last night. I suppose it might be possible to view such an event in one of two ways. Egad, more dad-blasted snow on top of an inch of sleet? Or, perhaps, Oh, how pretty! And much less than the forecast called for; aren't we lucky? A mighty force is the attitude, as is the adjective. How a person, place, or thing is presented can have lasting impact on the mind of the reader; the power can be used for good or ill. Consider the coat that I spied last week, pieced together from what appeared to be upholstery leftovers. I could tell you that it was a cabbage rose-printed nightmare direct from the diseased imaginings of a demented seamstress . On the other hand, I could also say that it was an eye-catching design that made clever use of found fabric. You see? Our descriptions have power. A wise author will choose the most important detail as a focal point, letting the rest flow from there. The CMOS warns against using any language t...

Good writers compose sentences. Great writers craft language. One thing you will find plenty of on this blog is advice on how to edit your manuscript. Tight editing can make all the difference. It is important if you decide to submit to agents and editors. It is essential if you decide to go the independent route. Here are a few of my favorite posts on revision. Self-Editing One Step at a Time: How to Identify Dragging Narrative Self-Editing One Step at a Time: Fine-Tuning Sentence Structure Top Ten Things I Know About Editing Self-Editing One Step at a Time: Analyzing Sentences for Redundancy and Wordiness Self-Editing One Step at a Time: Cleaning Up Those Dialogue Tags I created Story Building Blocks III: The Revision Layers to collate all of the advice I had collected on how to revise my own work. This book will not turn you into a professional editor. It will, however, help you present the cleanest and tightest manuscript to your agent or editor. If you self-pub...

One of the hardest things to do, in writing as in life, is to not judge. In writing, every time you express your opinion or judgment, you are robbing your reader of theirs. Think about it. If you are describing climbing Mount Everest, you could accurately describe it as difficult, challenging, painful, or exciting. But these are all your judgments. If you want your reader to truly understand how it is to climb Mount Everest, he or she must have an experience. They must feel the ice forming on their eyelashes and hear the crunch of frozen snow under their boots. Then they can form their own opinion that it is difficult, challenging, painful, or exciting. Here’s a simple exercise in “Show Not Tell” that practices getting rid of judgment words and replacing them with experiential details. Describe a room in your house, perhaps the room you are sitting in now. Describe everything and anything in it – without using any adjectives or adverbs that imply opinion (such as pretty, or dirty...

Weak modifiers are usually the first words to be tackled in the editing phase , but you can improve your writing skills by choosing these more wisely in your early drafts too. Each time you select a noun or verb, and then use another word (or a string of words ) to modify it, you weaken the quality of your writing. Here are some points to consider when you plan your characters and settings and write those first descriptions: Overused Modifiers Don’t Register The beautiful girl The tall, dark, handsome man The lovely day The quaint town If you think your character is “beautiful”, show your readers what that means to you. Do you mean “inner beauty” that shines through and gives her a deeper radiance, or do you mean “superficial, airbrushed looks”? Describe what it is about her that readers need to judge her on. Here you, as a writer, give up control in exchange for drawing your reader in more deeply. Allowing readers to make up their own minds gives them ownership in the story,...

This post by Patricia Stoltey appeared on September 11, 2009. Why revisit it? Excessive wordiness draws a distinct line between ordinary writing and extraordinary writing. Of course, other factors contribute to taking a manuscript from mundane to magnificent, but this is so essential that it bears repeating. (Original post has been edited/condensed to respect time constraints this time of year.) We often mention overuse of adjectives and adverbs. Why? We don't need to tell readers every detail. A minor male character, for example, may be described as 60ish with long black hair, bronze skin, and a leathery, weathered face. Or you can say he's an Arapahoe elder. The reader will form a similar mental picture. Anything from a palace tower room to a battle scene may require description, but pay close attention to what is important. Unnecessary repetition—telling the reader the same thing in different ways—doesn’t move the story forward. Adverbs, even more than adjectives, ar...

As you read back through your story looking for ways to improve it, stop and question each set of multiple modifiers. If all they provide superficial detail, as many such word sets do, reconsider their usage. Because if you let them, they can provide a window to deeper characterization. All you have to do is climb through. Let's say the first set you come to says that your character has “long stringy orange hair.” In your first draft, that visual image was enough—the movie of story was unreeling in your mind, you saw the character, you took notes. By applying three modifiers your subconscious suggested that this character's hair was a detail worthy of further consideration. In this draft you have an opportunity to do just that—and in doing so, uncover deeper meaning. Long. Stringy. Orange. It is unfair of you to ask your reader to sift through your verbiage to arrive at meaning. How is she to know what is the most important information if you as author don’t? Try paring tha...

"Substitute "damn" every time you're inclined to write "very;" your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be." - Mark Twain "Write with nouns and verbs, not with adjectives and adverbs. The adjective hasn't been built that can pull a weak or inaccurate noun out of a tight place." - William Strunk, Jr. Still not convinced that all your carefully selected adjectives weaken the story? I dare you to dig up that paragraph you slaved over - the one with all the beautiful, flowery, descriptive words. You know the one. Make a copy and remove all the adjectives. Read both - the original and the new. Read them again. Which is stronger? I don't know what you found, but I usually find the words are stronger when there are fewer of them. If I'm unhappy with the shorter version, I try to figure out what is wrong - and that generally turns out to be an incorrect verb, not a missing adjective. ---------------------------...